Civil Justice

Never at a loss for spinning its corporate-friendly agenda as somehow benefiting working Americans, yesterday’s “2019 State of American Business Address” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, was a textbook example of using syrupy public relations-friendly language to mask the Chamber’s true intent. The speech laid out the Chamber’s policy priorities for 2019 and for the newly sworn-in 116th Congress in characteristically rosy terms.

A closer look at what was officially called the “#AmericanDreams” speech, though, paints a starkly different picture from how it sounded on its surface. The vision Donohue laid out—of maintaining private, for-profit healthcare; of an unregulated pharmaceutical industry free to price gouge consumers; of unrestrained use of fossil fuels that would pollute our environment and further contribute to climate change; of policies preventing consumers and workers from suing corporations that have harmed or discriminated against them; and of a total lack of transparency in corporate political spending—would be more like an American Nightmare for the average citizen.

When Donohue claims that the state of the economy is extremely strong, what he really means is that it’s great if you’re a CEO or wealthy stockholder raking in record corporate profits and increased share values due to record stock buybacks. However, the average American has been facing years of wage stagnation, job insecurity, underemployment, and a dangerous lack of worker protections. And, when he says “prudent regulation,” he means fewer safeguards for workers, consumers, and the public at large.

The Chamber’s well-funded and heavily-staffed lobby machine can be very savvy. So, when it says it will “take bipartisanship into account” we know that means that with a Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in the 116th Congress, the Chamber cannot simply rely on congressional Republicans to pass its corporate agenda alone, as it’s done for years. And though the Chamber has added bipartisanship as a criterion in its 2019 legislative scorecard (at 10% of total score, making it roughly the weighted equivalent of the “participation” grade in an average college class), these feints toward moderation are merely PR. Its policy advocacy is no less extreme in its tilt toward corporations and the extremely wealthy folks who make up its donor base and against the average consumer, worker or family.

To wit: Donohue promises to “use all of our resources to combat” a single-payer healthcare system. Although such a system would overwhelmingly benefit the average American and is tremendously popular with the public, it would endanger the Chamber’s corporate buddies in the health industry, so the Chamber is now threatening to oppose it with all of its considerable lobbying might. Elsewhere in the speech, Donohue claims that protests of natural gas pipelines and the push to keep fossil fuels in the ground are causing undue strain on American traditional energy producers. In reality, this decline is because those entities are themselves fossils, tied to a business model that is no longer profitable (let alone prudent given the clear evidence of climate change). This willfully misleading stance proves the Chamber is just as beholden to the fossil fuel industry as ever.

Later in the speech, Donohue claims that Americans’ right to file civil and class action suits “undermines justice” when really it protects vulnerable populations from powerful wealthy interests. And, when the Chamber says that the U.S. should restrict shareholder rights to “reform” publicly-owned corporations’ policies on matters such as disclosure of political spending, it really means it wants average investors to have less of a say and intends to do all it can to ensure secret money continues to be dumped into political campaigns.

In all of these cases, the Chamber’s policy goal amounts to letting corporations do whatever they want with zero accountability and zero protection for the public interest. The Chamber may be attempting to put on a fresh new face to deal with a new Congress, but rest assured, its agenda is as pro-corporate and anti-Main Street as ever. Perhaps instead of promising to stand for “every child, every family, every worker, and every entrepreneur,” a more honest promise would be that the Chamber stands for “every corporation, every billionaire, every Big Bank, and every CEO.”

Over the last several decades, Big Business associations, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have become far more active in federal litigation. Agency regulators now anticipate a lawsuit from a trade association when they issue major regulations. And trade associations led by the Chamber regularly file amicus briefs. Those briefs make legal arguments; they also serve to signal to judges what the Chamber and other trade associations believe to be important.

For this report, we identified cases that came before Judge Kavanaugh and in which the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), or the American Petroleum Institute (API) participated as a party or amicus curiae.

To compile the list of relevant cases, we did Westlaw and Bloomberg searches for D.C. Circuit decisions where Judge Kavanaugh sat on the panel or that were heard en banc, and that included “Chamber of Commerce” or “National Association of Manufacturers” or “American Petroleum Institute.” We assessed whether Judge Kavanaugh sided for or against the business group.

Our findings: In 25 of the 33 cases (76%) we found that were relevant to this inquiry, Judge Kavanaugh sided with the position advanced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers or American Petroleum Institute. In 8 cases (24%), he ruled against the position of the business group.[1]

[1] Cases from our searches not included in this tally were primarily cases in which the groups appeared in the court’s opinion in a case citation. In addition, in Seven-Sky v. Holder, 661 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2011), the Chamber appeared as amicus in support of neither party arguing that if the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was unlawful, then the court should strike down the entire Act because the mandate was not severable. The court held that the individual mandate was within Congress’s power. Judge Kavanaugh dissented on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the Anti-Injunction Act barred the suit, and did not weigh in on the merits.

[2] In this case, Judge Kavanaugh agreed with two of the three arguments advanced by API.

One of the most important legal tools that exists to protect against corporate wrongdoing is allowing harmed individuals to band together to sue as a class or collective action. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers can use forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts to block employees from bringing collective and class action lawsuits against their employer. As a result, employers will have free rein to force employees to sign arbitration agreements that waive the right to bring collective or class actions as a condition of employment.

This is a devastating blow to workers’ rights because it is difficult for workers to prove violations of the law such as wage theft or discrimination if they cannot band together with co-workers to show a pattern of abuse. Class actions are also more efficient and can be the only feasible way to bring small dollar claims since the cost of bringing a case can outweigh the monetary harm to any one person but the wrongdoing was widespread. Last week’s SCOTUS decision, Epic Systems v. Lewis, will herald in an era of further restrictions for workers’ access to the courts and drastically weaken the ability to achieve justice in the face of accountability for employers’ wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s hands are all over this misguided decision.

The Chamber filed a “friend of the court” amicus brief in support of the employers, arguing that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) does not protect against forced arbitration as the employees’ legal team argued it does. It makes sense that the Chamber is so invested in advocating for weak employee protections; this fits in with the Chamber’s longlegacy of hostility toward workers’ rights. The corporations that make up the Chamber’s membership have a financial interest in employers’ unmitigated ability to dictate all the terms of employees’ contracts.

The Chamber’s allies in the corporate sphere are already jumping at the opportunities provided by the Court’s decision. Shortly after the decision was announced, employment firm Ogletree Deakins released an automated ‘DIY’ tool for companies to include forced arbitration clauses in their contracts.

The Supreme Court’s ruling is alarming to civil rights and consumer rights activists who worry that the decision will limit employees’ access to justice in order to fight a whole host of corporate wrongdoing including discrimination, wage theft, and sexual harassment. Just this week, in light of the Epic decision, Chipotle petitioned a court to exclude more than 2,000 persons from an ongoing wage theft lawsuit because the company argued the workers signed arbitration agreements that prohibited them from joining any class actions.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that “[i]t would be grossly exorbitant to read the FAA [Federal Arbitration Act] to devastate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws enacted to eliminate, root and branch, class-based employment discrimination.” She also called on Congress to pass legislation that would affirm the right of employees to join class actions to oppose discriminatory employment contracts such as violations of equal pay for women.

Public Citizen is committed to doing just that by working to make sure the Arbitration Fairness Act is passed, which prohibits forced arbitration for employment, consumer, antitrust or civil rights disputes, and also by spearheading corporate campaigns to call on individual companies to voluntarily end the use of forced arbitration clauses. If the Arbitration Fairness Act were to receive a vote—something that’s not likely in the current Congress, unfortunately—you can bet that the Chamber’s voice would bellow in opposition as it has done in the past.

As Public Citizen noted in its own friend of the court brief that we filed in support of workers, access to the courts is an essential right for workers and consumers to in standing up to corporate abuses. The Chamber, it seems, would prefer to let those abuses run rampant.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue gave his “State of the American Business” address yesterday, signaling that the trade association and the nation’s largest lobby spender couldn’t be happier about benefits that were handed out to Big Business over the past year, which included record Wall Street profits and a massive tax giveaway.

Unfortunately, many of those gains did not reach Main Street and won’t. And, even though Donahue himself admitted that “the prosperity hasn’t flowed to every community or every household,” he remained undeterred in touting discredited “trickle down” economic theories. His address featured a laundry list of anti-consumer priorities for 2018 that are geared toward maximizing big business’s profits at the expense of public safety and health.

Donahue gushed both about last year’s massive tax giveaway for the wealthiest, as well as the Trump administration’s commitment to undo critical health and safety regulations in order increase corporate profits. The tax handouts for corporations will be paid for by cuts to critical government services like Medicaid, education, and nutrition programs leaving hard working U.S. families decidedly worse off. The push to deregulate and undo our nation’s public safeguards will lead to more tainted food, dangerous products, and unsafe medicines—outcomes that will harm or even kill Americans.

If cutting services that help everyday people in order to pay for tax cuts for profitable corporations and gutting health and safety regulations weren’t enough of “achievements” for the Chamber, it is urging Congress to make massive cuts to the nation’s safety net benefit programs moving forward, which could gravely impact millions of older and underprivileged Americans. And the Chamber is gearing up its fight to help corporations combat shareholders resolutions that give shareholders a say in the management of the companies they invest in and increase transparency in those companies.

In addition, the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform will continue to work to limit a person’s right to their day in court—benefitting big banks, insurance companies, and massive corporations that seek to close the courthouse doors on consumers who have been defrauded, cheated, or ripped off.

To accomplish all of this, the Chamber is doubling down on siding with Wall Street over Main Street by aggressively recruiting candidates for political office who promise to work on behalf of their overly partisan, Big Business-enriching goals.

Unlike most fair-minded Americans, the Chamber is devotedly against the principle that America succeeds when everyone succeeds, and instead leaves its faith in the failed theory that when “pro-growth agenda succeeds, America succeeds.” Instead of asking what policies will directly help working families, the Chamber continues to pursue policies that limit our access to courts, curtail health and safety regulations, advance trade policies that harm American workers, and side with corporations over investors.

Donohue firmly believes that the “state of American businesses” is strong. Unfortunately, it is at the expense of hardworking Americans and their families.

This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will host its annual Small Business Summitin Washington, DC. The stated purpose of the three day event is to provide small businesses with tools and strategies “to successfully compete in today’s rapidly changing business environment.” While this sounds well and good, the Chamber unsurprisingly fails (yet again) to mention that its role as “the voice of small business” is really just a sham.

The Summit agenda consists of a multitude of panels, including “How to Get Your Company Thinking Like a Startup,” “Your State’s Lawsuit Climate and How It Affects Small Businesses,” and “How and Why Your Business Grows (or Doesn’t).” Sure, these panels sound innocent enough to someone who isn’t well-versed on the Chamber, but in reality—they hide the many times the Chamber has lobbied to stack the deck against small businesses. We’ve taken the liberty of renaming and reframing the Summit panels so that they are more honest about the Chamber’s relationship with small business:

Litigating Against Small Business for Beginners: Chamber vs. Main Street

Looking to keep consumers out of court? Hoping to sue a mom-and-pop shop? This panel is for you!

While the Chamber may claim to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to litigation, it can be consistently relied upon to favor the huge corporations that fund it. Whether it’s arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses. In fact, in a report earlier this year, Chamber Watch found that the Chamber files a brief roughly every other day of the work week, and in almost 60 percent of cases, the Chamber supported at least one Fortune 500 company. In comparison, it supported a domestic small business only 7 percent of the time. In fact, it supported a foreign multinational twice as often as it did a domestic small business. Companies the Chamber litigated on behalf of included State Farm, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Allstate, Berkshire Hathaway, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, AIG, and JP Morgan Chase, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, BP, PPL, and Shell, to name a few.

Regulations help Small Business? Deny Deny Deny 101

Have you heard the term “red tape” but aren’t sure how to work it into every day conversation? Stop by this lecture to hear from Chamber experts on their experience in denying that regulations actually help rather than hurt small businesses. This panel will equip you with all the tools you need to ignore the statistics that show small businesses support regulation and steer the conversation elsewhere. Did someone say red tape?

The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. From the overtime rule, to the Clean Water Rule to the Clean Power Plan, to the open internet rules (have we made our point?) it has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back. According to a poll by Small Business Majority, 86 percent of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93 percent of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78 percent of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79 percent of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61 percent support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.

Net Non-Neutrality: Even We Know We’re Wrong on This One

Are you an AT&T or Comcast employee who accidentally wandered into this Summit? You’re in the right place now!

The Chamber has conceded that the vast majority of Americans, support net neutrality. In fact, even smaller internet service providers (ISPs,) part of the small business community that the Chamber loves to claim to represent, support net neutrality regulations because they prevent larger competitors from gaining an unfair advantage. Proponents of net neutrality argue that by ensuring equal treatment of all internet content, companies compete on a level playing field and consumers are able to access whatever content they want without issue. Meanwhile, the Chamber and other opponents argue that net neutrality regulations limit incentives for ISPs to improve their networks. These critics argue that without charging companies to guarantee access to content, ISPs won’t have the money necessary to make these investments. In reality, investment in internet infrastructure has not decreased as a result of net neutrality regulations. That leaves only one constituency in favor of deregulation: giant telecom companies.

With its anti-small business record so clear, why does the Chamber still keep up its yearly sham? Apparently the “Big Business Summit” just doesn’t have the same ring…

Wells Fargo has done it again. And again. And again. This time, instead of creating fake accounts that customers weren’t aware of, or allegedly charging them for auto insurance they didn’t need, Wells Fargo has come for the mom and pop shops of Main Street, USA.

A new class action lawsuit alleges that Wells Fargo has been overcharging small businesses for processing credit card transactions, asserting that Wells’ 63-page Merchant Processing Application included “voluminous legalese that could not possibly be read in its entirety or understood by merchant customers.” The suit claims that various fine print provisions allowed the bank to charge merchants arbitrary fees.

According to the suit, one of the plaintiffs in the case, a small business owner in Charlotte, was charged monthly fees for failing to meet a minimum number of transactions, a minimum he believed had been waived. Another plaintiff, a Pennsylvania small business owner, claims he was charged numerous additional fees including monthly charges even after his business closed. In each case, fine print clauses in the contract were used to justify the imposition of these additional fees.

This case is yet another example of Wells Fargo using fine print to rip off its customers, be they individual consumers or small businesses. In the fake account scandal, Wells continuously used forced arbitration clauses buried in fine print to block class actions challenging its improper behavior. These “rip-off” clauses, commonly found in contracts for a variety of financial products such as banks accounts, credit cards, and loans, ban individuals and small businesses from banding together and challenging wrongdoing in court.

Instead of litigating allegations of fraud and other abusive practices in court before a neutral judge, banks like Wells Fargo can force consumers and small businesses into an individual and secretive arbitration process where the arbitrator who will hear the case is a person chosen by the financial institution. By robbing defrauded customers of their day in court, financial institutions are able to get away with widespread misconduct, because few people have the time or resources to pursue often small dollar claims alone in secret arbitration.

While much of the Wells coverage to date has been heavily focused on defrauded consumers, rip-off clauses harm small businesses as well, making it nearly impossible for small business owners to protest hidden fees, illegal debt collection, and other deceptive or unfair practices. Almost any time a mom and pop store does business with a financial services company, chances are the contract contains a rip-off clause. Nearly all credit card agreements force customers into arbitration if there is a dispute – and credit cards are one of the top three sources of short term capital used by small businesses.

It seems probable that this latest case will end up being another instance in which Wells will attempt to use forced arbitration as a “get out of jail free” card.

Fortunately, a newly released rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will prohibit banks and lenders that break the law from stripping consumers of the right to join together and hold these institutions accountable in class action lawsuits. Small businesses that use consumer financial products will also be protected by this rule.

That’s the good news. Now the bad news. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s most powerful business lobby, is already pushing Congress to kill the rule and rob consumers of the ability to join together to hold banks accountable in court for wrongdoing. Without the CFPB arbitration rule, Wells Fargo and other financial services companies will continue to pocket billions in ill-gotten gains at the expense of consumers and small businesses. This new rule will restore accountability and transparency, making our financial system stronger and safer for all of us.

The Chamber has a tough choice to make. On the one hand, it has lobbied extensively against limits on rip-off clauses and is now is urging Republicans in Congress to repeal the rule under the Congressional Review Act. On the other, it repeatedly claims to be the voice of small business.

So, when the rubber meets the road, will the Chamber continue lobbying to give a free pass to institutions like Wells Fargo, or will it stand up for the small businesses it claims to represent in its promotional materials? If the Chamber really is the voice of small of business, then this latest case against Wells Fargo presents a perfect opportunity for the Chamber to put its money where its mouth is. The Chamber should take a stand on behalf of mom and pop shops by ceasing to defend the rip-off clauses big banks use to take advantage of small businesses. Otherwise, it’s simply defending corporate greed.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wasted no time in opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final arbitration rule that was released Monday, criticizing it as a “brazen” act.

Too often, consumers are blocked by “rip-off clauses”, a fine-print trick that banks and predatory lenders use to evade accountability and conceal illegal behavior by prohibiting individuals and small businesses from having their day in court and forcing them into opaque arbitration proceedings. Under arbitration, the corporation gets to pick the arbiter who will hear the case. As such, arbitration inherently stacks the deck against consumers and small businesses and oftentimes serves as a get-out-of-jail-free card for rogue financial institutions, leaving consumers defrauded and without any other legal recourse.

The newly issued rule would restore consumers’ right to band together in class-action lawsuits against financial firms. Why is this so important? Consider the case of a bank that improperly charges millions of account holders a $50 fee. There are few people who will expend the time and energy necessary to litigate a $50 dispute on their own in arbitration. But this same $50 fee, improperly levied on millions of customers may generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the bank. Class actions allow consumers to band together and pursue their small dollar claims in court without having to invest time or money. By prohibiting class actions and requiring individual arbitration, rogue banks and other corporations essentially provide themselves with impunity to repeatedly abuse consumers. These giant corporations understand that without the possibility of suing in a class action, the vast majority of consumers will just eat the small fees they may improperly charge.

It should come as no surprise that the rule has the Chamber and its Wall Street friends on red-alert, given that it has the potential cost the industry billions. The Chamber has lobbied extensively against limits on the “rip-off clause,” hoping instead that corporations will be able to continue ripping off consumers with latitude, as we saw in last year’s Wells Fargo fake account scandal. The Wells Fargo case also illustrates another huge advantage of arbitration for corporations. Because arbitration takes place in secret rather than in open court, in the rare instances where a consumer arbitrates a dispute against a corporation, it helps the corporation prevent its alleged misconduct from becoming public, which might trigger investigations by prosecutors or regulatory agencies.

In a joint statement by Lisa Rickard, the president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) and David Hirschmann, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, the Chamber asserts its view that the rule has a “complete disregard for the will of Congress, the administration, the American people, and even the courts” and that it ignores “the practical benefits of arbitration, as compared to the court system.”

Sure, the rule may go against the wishes of the current administration, one that is backed by corporate interests who stand to benefit from forced arbitration, but it most certainly does not “disregard” the American people, “or even the courts” for that matter. In fact, it aims to allow people to have their day in court! What the Chamber fails to mention in its scathing critique of the rule, is that more often than not, the “practical benefits” of arbitration fall only upon the big banks and other huge corporations, and not on everyday consumers and small businesses who are too often taken advantage of by corporations intent upon padding their bottom lines through questionable means.

In addition to the Chamber’s statement, the ILR’s Senior Vice President of Legal Reform Policy, Matt Webb, said in an NPR interview that the CFPB’s actions are “an example of an agency largely going rogue, doing the bidding of the plaintiffs’ trial bar and doing something that’s going to be harmful to consumers as well as the business community.”

It seems perplexing, even shocking, that the Chamber is feigning concern for consumers given its history of lobbying on behalf of nearly every industry, often at the expense of average Americans. The Chamber also seems to overlook the fact the CFPB spent three years compiling and analyzing data, resulting in the most comprehensive empirical study ever done on arbitration, requested by lawmakers, demonstrates that forced arbitration effectively wipes out consumer claims.

Not only is the Chamber lobbying against this rule, much like it has lobbied for legislation to restrict individual and small business access to the courts in the past, it also goes to court itself to argue that it should be more difficult for others to exercise this same fundamental right. In fact, the Chamber went to court to argue that others should be denied this same right over 100 times during a recent three year period. How’s that for hypocrisy?

What’s more, in recent years, the Chamber has involved itself in class action cases on behalf of BP, Goldman Sachs, Corinthian Colleges, and a boatload of other corporate bad actors. Should we still be taking their feigned concern over how this rule effects consumers seriously?

Now, the Chamber has vowed to do whatever it can to keep consumers from having their day in court, whether by suing the bureau once the arbitration rule becomes final or by lobbying Republicans to repeal the law using the Congressional Rule Act (CRA).

Let’s be clear about what the Chamber’s crusade in favor of “rip-off clauses” is really about: corporate impunity. The Chamber is once again seeking to make it harder for individuals and small businesses to use the civil justice system to hold corporations and financial institutions accountable for wrongdoing. Forced arbitration shields the Chamber’s Wall Street and big business allies from accountability for anti-consumer practices, thereby encouraging unsavory business practices by allowing violations to go unchecked. The Chamber has shown time and time again that it is neither the voice for small business or consumers, and its unflagging efforts to restrict access to the courts are par for the course. The Chamber may have claimed that the CFPB went rogue, but it and the big banks it represents are the real rogue actors in this story.

If you’re a progressive, you might feel tempted to pop the champagne corks after the spectacular collapse of the GOP’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week making it seem as if President Trump and Republican Congress may not be ready for prime time governing.

With all of these stories dominating the news cycle, some might think that Trump administration and GOP Congress are simply not ready to govern. Hobbled by incompetence and internal squabbling, they seem to lurch from one fiasco to the next.

However, the daily headlines of scandals mask one area where Trump and the GOP Congress have been successful at advancing the Republican agenda: they have already succeeded in pursuing the most aggressive regulatory rollback since the Reagan administration.

The main driver of this deregulatory agenda is the big business behemoth that is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sure, it may have been Steve Bannon who uttered the words, “deconstruct the administrative state,” but it is the Chamber along with its big business allies who behind this drive to gut critical public protections.

So forgive us for being Debbie Downers and for corking the champagne as we take a moment to bring you up to speed on what the GOP, Chamber, and Trump have succeeded in doing during the first two months of this administration.

The past two months have been marked by an aggressive use of the heretofore rarely used Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to strike down regulatory protections issued in the final months of a previous administration using expedited procedures. Hundreds of public protections are at risk through the CRA, 15 have been repealed by the House, 12 in the Senate, and already 7 have been signed by Trump.

Just this week, Trump signed four more CRA resolutions. Among them was the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” rule, which barred companies from receiving federal contracts if they had a history of violating wage, labor or workplace safety laws. The U.S. Chamber has been lobbying against this rule since its creation, in an effort to protect big federal contractors from being finally held accountable. Another of these was a Bureau of Land Management rule known as “Planning 2.0,” which gave the federal government a greater role in land use decisions. This rule was opposed by the energy industry, and therefore the Chamber strongly lobbied for its demise.

Unfortunately, the CRA isn’t the only tool in the Trump Administration’s toolbox. Trump has also issued several executive orders (EOs) undoing our public protections. He issued an EO mandating that two regulations are to be repealed for every new one that goes on the books. This week, he signed an EO aimed at undoing numerous climate initiatives put in place by the Obama administration. The EO includes telling the EPA and other agencies to rollback components of the Clean Power Plan, reconsider carbon standards for new coal plants, reassess methane emission regulations, as well as several other changes sought by the fossil fuel industry. And, earlier this month, Trump announced the EPA would review and likely weaken Obama’s fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks in the post-2022 period. While there may be obstacles to achieving all of this, it is still a huge step in the wrong direction if we want to have a serious chance at limiting the impacts of global warming. And, sadly, these deregulatory these moves were all sought by the Chamber, which is no stranger to battling Obama-era environmental policies. In the course of just 3 years, the Chamber opposed the EPA in court 26 times and they have lobbied on these issues for years.

Most recently, the U.S. House of Representatives did the bidding of corporate America by using the CRA to vote to repeal Broadband Privacy Protections, which prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from tracking the browsing habits of customers without their permission and place obligations on ISPs to keep their customers’ data secure, giving customers more control over their personal data and privacy. Earlier this month the Chamber sent a letter to the Science and Transportation Committee leadership urging members to vote in favor of this CRA stripping Americans of their internet privacy.

So there you have it. Trump and the GOP Congress are successfully dismantling many important public protections including those protecting clean water, clean air, worker health and safety, and internet privacy. And the Chamber has been behind most of these regulatory rollbacks we’ve seen in the past 60 days. While Steven Bannon may falsely claim that deconstructing the “administrative state” will benefit the people, the reality is that it is not the people that are behind this agenda, it is the Chamber and giant corporations that are pushing it. Empty populist rhetoric aside, the administration’s deregulatory zeal is proof positive of the overwhelming influence of its corporate masters.

Political rhetoric blaming government regulations for stifled small business growth is at an all-time high, and it’s no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is behind most of it. The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. Whether it’s the overtime rule that would provide overtime pay to millions of middle income Americans, the Clean Water Rule to protect our streams and rivers, the Clean Power Plan to limit power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, and the open internet rules to preserve net neutrality, the Chamber has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back.

The Chamber also called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), supporting the American Health Care Act, despite the 24 million who would lose health care. But it doesn’t stop there. Tom Donohue and his big business allies would also like to see a repeal of Dodd-Frank Act, and specifically condemned the Volcker Rule to limit speculative trades by banks of the kind that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis and has vowed to fight against the fiduciary rule, which protects retirement savers from dishonest investment advisors.

Not only has the Chamber come out in favor or nearly every CRA challenge we’ve seen since Trump took office, it is also a strong supporter of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would hamstring future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment by layering on so many additional process requirements that rulemaking to protect the public would essentially come to a halt. Just last week, the Chamber released two video ads, targeting Senators Heitkamp and McCaskill, urging them to support the RAA.

All of this, under the clever, yet dishonest PR scheme that regulations hurt, and never help, small businesses. It makes perfect sense- if the Chamber and big business want to accomplish the corporate windfall that would result from a deregulatory agenda, the best way to do so is to tout themselves as the advocate of Main Street.

However, many of the regulations that Donohue mentions don’t even apply to small businesses, and others, like the Clean Water Rule and the CFPB actually help small businesses.

While these conservative talking points often misleadingly focus on the burdens that regulations place on small business, surveys and poll data show that the very owners of these small businesses generally do not agree with their alleged advocates. According to a poll by Small Business Majority, 86% of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93% of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78% of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79% of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61% support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy. This runs directly contradictory to the Chamber’s lobbying for the repeal of Stream Protection rule, and the Oil Anti-corruption rule, which would leaving communities susceptible to water pollution by coal miners, and enable oil tycoons to avoid transparency.

Regulations do help small businesses and a lack of regulation can have detrimental effects. Just yesterday, a small business owner testified before the House Small Business Committee and urged lawmakers to ensure that public protections are in place to give his catering business fundamental confidence that the food and water they serve and consume is safe. Regulations provide the market with a basic level of certainty to ensure we are protected from tainted food, unsafe drugs, poisoned water, and polluted air.

There are other regulations, such as anti-trust laws that address price discrimination and price fixing, that help small business owners by leveling the playing field against larger businesses. The Chamber also fails to mention the many regulations enforced under the Small Business Administration that small businesses are prioritized for a certain set of government contracts.

When regulations don’t exist, it is typically small businesses who suffer most. The Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico devastated small businesses in the tourism and fishing industry, and not surprisingly it was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who went to court on behalf of British Petroleum and sought to keep the local small businesses out of court, all the while claiming to be the voice of Main Street.

While the Chamber is spending big bucks to lobby against commonsense protections, it is crucial to remember that clean air, clean water, and regulation of Wall Street protect the public. Clear rules protect small businesses and manufacturers from powerful interests who use their financial advantage to try to rig the system in their favor.

In a previous piece, we wrote about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s very busy litigation practice, the issues the Chamber litigates most frequently, the government agencies it most often opposes, and the giant multinational corporations its litigation most often supports.

In a newly-released report, we examine a few dozen of the most egregious cases the Chamber has litigated. From financial crisis-related litigation to cases stemming from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to Keystone XL to fracking to the Clean Power Plan to a case involving the Buckyball magnetic toy that injured over 1,700 children, the Chamber has been actively involved in some of the most notorious civil cases of recent years. Some of the lowlights of the Chamber’s litigation include:

Litigation related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The Chamber filed an amicus brief on behalf of BP on4 separate occasions, arguing for legal technicalities that would eliminate or reduce civil fines and penalties that government agencies sought to impose upon BP as well as obstruct class action litigation brought by small businesses against BP.

Litigation related to the Buckyball magnetic toy responsible for injuring thousands of children. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of the CEO of the company that sold Buckyballs, a toy that injured over 1,700 young children. It argued that he should not be personally liable for recall costs in spite of the fact that he had had ample warning of the danger posed by the toy and had indeed fought recall efforts, resulting in a delay that led to further sales—and further injuries.

Litigation related to for-profit Corinthian Colleges’ fraudulently misleading students. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of Corinthian Colleges’ effort to prevent former students from suing it in court for fraud despite the fact that Corinthian was already the subject of multiple investigations targeting similar conduct and had already settled a previous fraud case involving similar allegations.

Litigation related to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Chamber sided with the Canadian energy giant behind the pipeline over American ranchers and farmers who didn’t want the pipeline being routed through their land.

The Clean Power Plan. The Chamber sued the EPA to block President Obama’s signature initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at power plants.

Minimum Wage Litigation. The Chamber fought to strike down Seattle’s law raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, claiming that it would be bad for workers.

GMO Labeling Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief opposing Vermont’s GMO labeling law, arguing that it did not advance a legitimate state interest and impinged upon corporations’ free speech rights.

Alien Tort Statute Litigation. The Chamber filed amicus briefs in cases involving Nigerian and Papua New Guinean plaintiffs who alleged that foreign multinationals had been complicit in gross human rights abuses including rape, pillage, and aerial bombardment of civilians. In both cases, public protests against the industrial sites in question were brutally repressed by the government, allegedly at the behest of and assisted by the corporate defendants.

Walmart Gun Sales Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Walmart’s effort to prevent shareholders from voting on a proxy resolution calling for the company’s board to examine its sale of high capacity firearms.

Labor Rights for Gig Economy Workers. The Chamber sued the city of Seattle to block its law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.

Litigation against Goldman Sachs for fraudulently misleading investors. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Goldman Sachs in its efforts to make it more difficult for defrauded investors including pension funds to sue as a result of huge losses they suffered during the financial crisis.

Taken as a whole, the Chamber’s legal filings show it to be attempting to advance an exceptionally dangerous agenda via the courts. This agenda includes:

Invalidating important regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment, including rules promoting clean air, clean water, greater information, and prudent banking practices. The Chamber’s opposition to regulation is almost blanket, even extending to cases where the rule at issue would correct obvious market failures.

Making it harder to hold corporations accountable. The Chamber seeks to make it more difficult for consumers and small businesses harmed by corporate malfeasance to go to court. It also argues for more limited corporate prosecutions and for smaller penalties. Finally, it argues against U.S. jurisdiction in cases where corporations are accused of human rights abuses overseas. The Chamber’s ultimate goal in these cases is the same: corporate accountability should be minimized and/or eliminated.

Putting profits before people. The Chamber takes a very robber baron view of business. Whether defending Wall Street speculation or Big Pharma price gouging or appalling fast food labor practices or new economy exploitation of gig economy workers, the Chamber is unconcerned with how dubious business practices harm workers and consumers.

Favoring Big Business over small businesses. While the Chamber claims to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to its litigation practice, it can be relied upon to favor the giant multinational corporations that fund it. Whether it’s by arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses.

The Chamber’s use of the courts to advance its Big Business-friendly, anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-environmental agenda is important in considering the future of the Supreme Court. Some of these cases reached the Supreme Court; others may yet reach the Supreme Court. Progressives should demand that any future justice recognize the tremendous importance of regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment and refuse to put profits before people as the Chamber so often argues our courts should do.